


White Elephant

by iselsis



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Bad Parents Jack and Janet Drake, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Gen, Good Bro Dick Grayson, Jason Todd Gets A Hug, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, Rescue, Resurrected Jason Todd, The League of Assassins (DCU), Tim Drake Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:34:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28500834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iselsis/pseuds/iselsis
Summary: Bruce is going through the tracker feeds New Year's Eve to find out why Dick is running late when he realizes that there's a tracker reporting vital signs in Pakistan.Jason'stracker is reporting vital signs in Pakistan.Jason has been dead for nearly two years.
Relationships: Alfred Pennyworth & Bruce Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth & Jason Todd, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Comments: 140
Kudos: 822
Collections: Fics that I want to read once they are complete





	White Elephant

**Author's Note:**

> It's still New Years day SOMEWHERE. This would have been up earlier, but I wasn't feeling great this morning and ended up sleeping for eleven or twelve hours. Now, someone (I love y'all) is going to ask, but don't worry:  
> My mental health is fine.  
> My physical health is fine.  
> I'm not pushing myself. 
> 
> Listen: I don't have a life. If I'm not writing, I don't have anything to do. Except something awful, like hanging out with my siblings. Do you guys realize how many siblings I have? Five of my brother are home right now. They are loud, disgusting heathens only good for holding stuff and opening jars, and they don't like books. I would much rather write. 
> 
> This was also going to be a oneshot, but y'all know the drill by this point: the intro WAS going to be maybe five hundred words, but it ended up being nearly four thousand. So, chapters. There should be three, but there might be for because I'm bad at math and limits.

Bruce wasn’t _anxious_. He was… _frustrated._ It was _annoyance_ that had him pacing the kitchen floor and glancing between the clock and his phone on the table with every rotation. It was _exasperation_ that had his heart beat elevated. Not worry.

Dick was late.

He’d meant to be there at _eight_ , but he it was nearing _ten_ , and he wasn’t answering his phone, and Bruce didn’t know where he _was_.

Bruce clenched and unclenched his fists, trying to keep his breathing level.

_Jason was supposed to stay put, but he wasn’t where Bruce thought he was, he wasn’t where he was meant to be, and then he was dead._

“I’m sure he’s going to be here soon.”

Bruce glanced at Tim, who was lazily twirling a tea spoon through the nearly-full cup of tea in front of him. That was Tim’s favorite tea, but he’d barely taken a sip, and though Tim’s voice was calm, his shoulders were tense and Bruce could hear the squeaking _tap-tap-tap_ of his sneaker as his leg bounced against the tile floor.

Bruce dug his heel into the floor and resisted the urge to sigh. Tim was so sensitive to the moods of others, especially Bruce’s, and was so easily unsettled by perceived negative emotions. For a split second, Bruce felt a flare of real anger at Jack and Janet Drake. They’d had a beautiful, wonderful, _living_ son, and they’d treated him like _nothing._ Jack, despite his supposed epiphany, still treated him like an afterthought.

A dish, set down with more force than necessary, snapped him from his thoughts.

Bruce amended the assumption with a glance at the slight tremor in Alfred’s hands gripping the glass bowl. Not set down with _more force_ than necessary, but with _less strength_ than necessary to set it gently on the counter.

Alfred took a deep breath and looked up. He looked remarkably more put together than Bruce was feeling at that moment, but his face was shadowed with the same grief and…and worry—god, his heart felt like it was going to tear out of his chest and _he couldn’t find his son_ —that had Bruce so on edge.

“Perhaps,” Alfred suggested, his voice nearly level, “you should check his GPS tracker.”

“That—Yes, I’ll do that right away,” Bruce said with a relieved huff. That was a good idea and it was something to do instead of just standing there and worrying. “I’ll let you know as soon as I find him. Tim, do you want to come with me?”

Tim flinched, just slightly, at being called out. Bruce cursed himself for showing so much stress around his youngest son—despite what the law had to say about Jack Drake—who would normally love to tag along and learn something new, but who was looking up at him with nervous blue eyes and obvious dread.

“I—I can come,” Tim consented, like Bruce was planning to pull his teeth or talk to him about girls.

Bruce tried his best for a smile and set a hand on Tim’s shoulder. It was going to be a good day tomorrow. Jack and his girlfriend had been in town for Christmas, so they were celebrating their own Christmas on New Year’s Day, and he wasn’t going to ruin that for Tim.

“Never mind. Why don’t you stay up here and keep Alfred company? I won’t be very long.”

Tim’s shoulders relaxed slightly, and he even quirked a slight smile. “Okay. I’ll make sure Alfred stays out of trouble.”

Bruce rolled his eyes, a bit of the pain in his chest easing. “Of course. We all know what he gets up to when we’re not around.”

Tim’s smile widened, but he turned it away to hide that blush he always got whenever Bruce touched showed him any kind of affection.

Bruce ruffled Tim’s hair as he left. “I’ll be right back. I promise.”

The trackers Alfred was referring to weren’t the suit trackers that let them keep track of each other on patrol with pinpoint-accuracy. No, because if Alfred just wanted to know where Dick _was_ , he would have told Bruce to track Dick’s phone or suit, neither of which he wouldn’t have left his apartment without.

Years ago, when he’d first taken in Dick, Bruce had designed a tracking chip that not only gave a global position, but which also read and reported vital signs. It was embedded under an arm of everyone in his immediate circle as both Bruce and Batman. The thought was morbid, but in the event of a kidnapping, the chips would let Bruce know if there was still anyone alive to be saved or ransomed.

Bruce knew that everything was probably fine. Traffic, with the snow, or a flat tire. Maybe Dick _had_ forgotten his phone at home, or maybe he’d meant to tell Bruce that he was going to be later and had forgotten. All things that had happened before, all totally normal things, but if— _if it wasn’t_ one of those, then Dick might be hurt or dead, and Bruce needed to find him. He had to know. 

As he sat down at the desk and pulled up the program, his breath caught slightly and his fingers froze on the keyboard. It was…this was the first time _he_ was using the GPS trackers in nearly two years. It was usually more convenient to use the suit trackers, and the few times they’d needed to use the GPS trackers, Alfred had been operating the computers for Bruce while he was in the field. He hadn’t sat down and pulled up the program since he’d used it to track down Jason when he’d run to Ethiopia. He’d never been able to bring himself to open the program and see Jason’s tracker still there, reporting _dead-dead-dead_.

Bruce took a deep breath and forced the thought away. Dick was the one who mattered at the moment. Tim was the one who mattered at the moment. He couldn’t let their holiday be ruined by falling into a depressed pit for a few days.

The program sprung up, showing four pulsing blue dots on a map of the United States, all clustered in southern New Jersey.

Bruce breathed a sigh of relief and zoomed in. Blue meant alive. Yellow would indicate that the body was in a state of stress, and red would mean—

Dick’s tracker was in Gotham, and when he zoomed in even farther, Bruce realized that he was nearly to the Manor. He would be pulling through the gates in probably less than a minute.

The anxiety he’d been feeling turned to actual annoyance. Would it have killed him to send a text that he’d be late?

Bruce sighed and started to close the program so he could go upstairs and meet Dick at the door, but something stopped him.

What was it?

Bruce looked again at the screen: four blue dots, each labeled with a name. Dick was at the gate, and Bruce looked like he was only feet away from Tim and Alfred in the kitchen despite being so far below them. Four, one for each of his surviving family members.

Maybe it was just that Jason’s tracker wasn’t on the screen. His son, missing out on yet another milestone. His son, who’d missed out on his own little brother. His son, who—

Who’s tracker had never been removed from the program.

Jason’s tracker wasn’t on the screen, but _it should have been._

Alfred didn’t know how to remove one of the trackers from being picked up by the program, Tim wouldn’t know how or think to do so, and Dick probably wouldn’t have been able to or bothered either. Dick hadn’t been in the cave much, either. The tracker should still be functional, even in death. Even after nearly two years, it should have still been reporting Jason’s vital signs.

Bruce felt his stomach churn.

His son’s body wasn’t in Gotham.

Who would have stolen Jason’s _body_? That was _sick_. And when had it even _happened_?

He remembered something about there being a disturbance at Jason’s grave, but he couldn’t remember much through the haze of grief everything had been at that point. It had been too much to deal with, and it was probably just a coyote or a fox, anyway. He couldn’t even remember when it had happened.

Bruce zoomed out so he could see all of North America.

Even if an animal had gotten to the body and—he didn’t want to think about anything having to do with his son’s body or what it would have looked like months later when an animal had attacked it, but even if an animal had done something, the tracker would still be in Gotham, or at least New Jersey, but it was just _gone_.

Maybe he was overreacting. Maybe a…decaying…body would have corroded the tracker to the point that it would malfunction.

That was a simple thing to check.

With a low growl of fury, Bruce typed in a search command for Jason’s body. He didn’t know what he was expecting to happen. Maybe he wouldn’t get a result. Maybe the tracker had been damaged in the explosion, even though Bruce knew that it had initially been working afterwards, and had eventually stopped working. Maybe he’d deactivated it in a fog of grief and couldn’t remember. Maybe Alfred hadn’t been able to stand looking at Jason’s dead signal and had figured out how to remove it himself, or maybe he’d had Dick and Tim do it.

It only took a few seconds for the computer to load, then the map started…to turn. And turn. Past the Atlantic Ocean, past Europe, before it eventually stopped and zoomed into South Asia.

On a blue dot.

Labelled Jason.

Bruce numbly clicked on Jason’s indicator and stared in awe as the tracker gave him the vital signs it was recording. Heart rate normal. _Heart beating_. Breathing normal. _Breathing_. Hormone balance indicative of mild to moderate stress.

 _Alive_.

Bruce’s fingers flew across the keyboard as he prepared to delete the tracker from the program, unable to swallow around the lump in his throat. Clearly, it was malfunctioning. The tracker should have been red, even if Jason’s body _had_ been stolen, because Jason had been dead for nearly two years. The combination of the explosion and unforeseen effects of embalming and decay had caused it to go haywire and start reporting Jason as alive and in…

Bruce looked up at the screen.

In Pakistan.

Bruce went back to typing before it clicked and his head snapped back up.

…There was absolutely no way…

Bruce hesitated only a moment before zooming in even closer on the signal he was receiving, and his heart stopped.

The signal was coming from Nanda Parbat.

She _didn’t_.

Bruce couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe.

_But Jason could._

“Bruce? Alfred said you thought I was dead. I’m not.”

A chill ran down Bruce’s neck as footsteps ambled down the staircase, and the words echoed in his ears for several seconds before he processed who was talking.

Bruce spun slowly in the chair to face Dick, but couldn’t find the words. Jason was alive—unless this was all a trick, or some fevered dream, or mind control—in the hands of the League of Assassins. How long had they had him? What had they done to him?

Dick’s easy-going expression melted into concern and he practically ran to Bruce. “Bruce?”

Dick grabbed him by the shoulders, the force jarring him from the shock long enough for him to say, “Jason’s alive,” but not long enough for any more explanation to piece itself together in his head.

Dick inhaled sharply, then his face pinched and he squeezed Bruce’s shoulder before letting go with one hand and reaching for the intercom. “Okay, B. I’m going to run a blood analysis, and I’m going to call Alfred down to check for a concussion. Just calm down.”

Bruce snatched Dick’s wrist before he could hit the button. “No.”

He couldn’t tell Alfred, not when he had no idea if it was real or just a glitch of the tracker or the program itself. He couldn’t give Alfred that kind of false hope. Even if Jason was _alive_ , he still had to break into a city of assassins to extract him, and there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t be killed or caught in the attempt.

Dick tugged gently on his wrist, then more insistently. “Bruce. Bruce, you’re not feeling well. You need help.”

Bruce took a deep breath and forced himself to uncurl his fingers. “The tracker.”

Dick frowned in confusion, but then glanced past Bruce to the computer screen. His frown deepened.

“What’s going on? What do you mean, ‘Jason’s alive’?” Dick stood up and stepped past Bruce, checking the trackers himself.

Bruce turned and watched silently as Dick closed and reloaded the program before searching for Jason’s tracker. Once again, the program reported Jason’s location as in the Hindu Kush mountains, nestled right in the heart of Nanda Parbat. It wasn’t just a one-time error. It wasn’t a mirage, because Dick was seeing the same thing.

Whether it was _true_ ….

Dick stumbled backwards with his hands over his mouth. “No way.”

Bruce swallowed hard and stood up. “We have to go. Do you have your suit?”

Dick had to take several deep breaths before he managed a nod. “I—it’s upstairs. Should I tell Tim—”

“No,” Bruce said sharply. With any luck and enough stealth, they wouldn’t have to fight anyone. Their chances of passing unnoticed would go down with every person, and Bruce couldn’t even think of bringing Tim into a city full of assassins. Tim wasn’t trained enough for that, and even if he was, he was too young. It was too dangerous. “We can’t tell them. Either of them, not until we have him with us. Not until we’re _sure_ this isn’t a trap.”

Dick’s face crumpled. “You’re not telling them? But if this is _real_ —”

“And if it’s _fake_ , they never have to know. We can’t do that to Alfred,” Bruce countered, determination washing over his uncertainty. “Go get your suit and start up the Batwing. We need to leave as soon as possible.”

At top speed, it would take just under three hours to get to Nanda Parbat. They could be ready to leave in under half an hour.

Jason could be home by morning.

Jason could be _alive_.

The thought was all-consuming, droning like a siren as he marched upstairs and returned to the kitchen on feet that felt like they belonged to someone else. It echoed through the empty chambers of his heart that had been carved hollow by the shock. It caught in his throat when he stood in the doorframe and watched as Alfred sifted the flour into the wet ingredients in the bowl while Tim chatted to him about something Bruce couldn’t make out over the ringing in his ears.

Bruce braced himself against the doorframe and forced it down. Forced himself to focus, for just a few moments, on something that wasn’t the devastating hope in his chest.

“Alfred. Tim,” Bruce said, his voice a bit hoarse.

They both looked up frowning.

“Master Bruce,” Alfred said, setting aside his sifter. “Master Dick has arrived, safe and sound. I sent him to the cave to greet you himself.”

Bruce nodded tersely. “I saw him. He’s fine.”

“Then what is the matter?” Alfred asked. His hand twitched on the handle of a rubber spatula for a moment before he picked it up and pointed it at Bruce with the quickest of glances at Tim. “If you two have gotten into a fight, I will not hesitate to shoot you both.”

Bruce sighed and looked to Tim as well, guilt pooling in his stomach. If he _was_ wrong, and he was late…

Tim watched him searchingly for several seconds as Bruce tried to come up with the words, then his shoulders slumped. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

Bruce stepped forward and sat down next to Tim, placing a hand on his baby bird’s back. Tim tensed and turned his face away, so Bruce pulled back his hand and sighed again.

“Tim, it’s just for a few hours. I’m going to be back for tomorrow,” Bruce promised.

Tim took a deep breath that rattled on emotion, and one hand flicked up to his eyes, but he didn’t protest. He didn’t say _anything_. Not _but you promised_ , like Dick would have said, or a betrayed _fuck off, I don’t care_ , like Jason would have snarled. Because Tim was too use to the adults in his life passing him up for something more interesting to do.

“Tim, please look at me,” Bruce said softly.

Tim sniffled and pulled the cuff of his sleeve over his hand so he could swipe at his eyes again before he slowly turned around. He still wouldn’t look up at Bruce, though.

Bruce put an arm around Tim’s shoulders and tugged him close, gently running his fingers through Tim’s hair. Tim’s breathed hitched and he curled into Bruce’s shoulder.

Bruce held him for a few minutes, praying that he had that time. The last time, he’d been just barely too late, but this time…Talia, because he _knew_ it was Talia, must have taken him for a reason, which meant that she wouldn’t be likely to want to break him. Even if something _did_ happen, they’d be close enough to a Lazarus Pit. Normally, Bruce wouldn’t dare risk it, but given that Jason had almost certainly already taken a dip…

Bruce made the mistake of glancing at Alfred, who was glaring bloody murder at him. Selfishly, he realized that he’d better be right, or Alfred was going to kill him. Quite possibly literally.

Finally, Tim’s nearly-silent sobbing petered off, and Bruce grabbed a napkin from the holder in the middle of the table and gave it to Tim so he could surreptitiously clean up the evidence of himself having had any negative emotions about Bruce’s plans. Oh, how Bruce hated the Drakes.

When Tim finally leaned back and looked carefully anywhere that wasn’t Bruce, Bruce reached up and gently took Tim’s chin in his hand and tilted it up. Tim still kept his eyes down until he realized that Bruce wasn’t talking until he had Tim’s full attention.

Tim slowly, reluctantly raised his lightly pink eyes to meet Bruce’s.

“Tim,” Bruce said very seriously, “I have to go, and I have to go now, but I _will_ be home tomorrow morning, and I’m so sorry. You are _very_ important, and I would never leave you unless I had to. Do you understand?”

Tim’s eyes watered again.

“Yes,” he rasped, but he didn’t look very much like he _believed._

It would have to do, though. Bruce pulled Tim close again and pressed a kiss onto the top of his head.

“I love you, Tim.” He hadn’t said that enough to Jason. He’d been so awkward about it, let his actions do the speaking, and had only _said_ it a few times. It was one of the things he regretted most. Would Jason have left in the first place if he’d known how much Bruce had loved him? Would he have felt so alone and desperate? Would it have at least been a bit more comfort in his final moments?

There was a small rap on the wall, and Bruce turned just his head to face Dick. Dick looked like he’d been crying too, but his posture was tense and guarded.

“Everything’s ready. I got your suit too,” Dick said. His eyes darted from Tim to Alfred, eliciting a small wince from Dick, but he didn’t say anything incriminating.

“You’re leaving _too_?” Tim gasped, pulling up to look at Dick. Bruce could hear the heartbreak in Tim’s voice and see it reflected in Dick’s face.

“I’m sorry, baby bird. It’s just—This—It can’t wait,” Dick stammered. “It’s—We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

Bruce kissed Tim’s head one more before he moved out of the way so Dick could give his own apology hugs.

Alfred set his spatula down on the counter with a _clack_ that meant business. Bruce hid a wince and walked over to the far corner of the kitchen. Alfred joined him a moment later, his footsteps silent but his presence _bleeding_ anger.

Bruce turned to face his butler, but didn’t get a chance to speak before Alfred hushedly snapped, “You had better have a _damn good reason_ for this, Bruce Thomas.”

Bruce hadn’t heard his middle name since he’d let Dick eat five pints of ice cream when he was eleven and they’d spent the rest of the night with Dick alternating between bouncing off the walls and hurling on the floor.

“I wouldn’t leave if it wasn’t—”

“Is the world _ending_?” Alfred cut him off.

“No, but—”

“Then don’t you think it can wait another twenty-four hours so that you do not further contribute to your son’s deeply entrenched abandonment issues?”

And if it were anything else, Bruce would agree. But if it _was_ Jason…

“Alfred, I can’t explain now, but this isn’t something you’d forgive me for putting off. I have to go _now,_ but I should be home by morning.” Assuming that he wasn’t captured or killed.

Alfred huffed. “I expect _answers_ and _you_ to be in my kitchen tomorrow by eight a.m. If either or those things are lacking…”

Alfred left the threat unfinished, but Bruce could imagine the havoc Alfred could wreak.

“I’ll be back,” Bruce said seriously.

“You’d better be,” Alfred warned, then stalked back to the counter and passive aggressively stirred at Bruce.

Dick was squeezing Tim so tightly it might have hurt, but Tim was holding just as tightly. Dick must have taken the end of Bruce’s conversation as a cue, even though Bruce didn’t want to drag him away from Tim, because he whispered something to Tim and tightened his grip before standing up.

Bruce walked over to them and set his hand on Tim’s head to give it one last ruffle.

“We’ll be back,” Bruce assured him again. “Probably before you even wake up. I’ll bring you a souvenir, too.”

Tim sniffled and nodded, but he’d probably heard those words too many times to believe them. Bruce didn’t blame him. He’d have to prove that when he said _I will be back,_ he meant _I will be back._

“Alright. Dick, let’s go.”

Bruce took Dick’s arm and led him from the room, picking up the pace in the hall. They were in the study when Dick finally pulled his arm away with a sniffle of his own and a weary judging look at Bruce.

“Did you just call Jason a souvenir?”

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I _think_ I got that timeline right: dead for six months, in a coma for a year, then amnesiac for a while after that, so this happens just after the Lazarus Pit.
> 
> Also, Wikipedia put the Batwing's top speed at 4,400 mph, which seemed a _bit_ much, so I put it at 2,500 mph, just a few hundred more than our current fastest plane.
> 
> Me: Okay, so Tim is sad, so Bruce rubs his ba- *remembers Envy has a thing for hair petting* so Bruce pets his hair to comfort him
> 
> I am 95% certain that the next thing up will be the next chapter of Coat and Cowl. I definitely shot myself in the foot, though, because I have, like, six or seven documents all labeled "Coat and Cowl" or some close variant, and I now have to sift through my sickly ramblings to find the actual snippets of a chapter that I did write.


End file.
